Eventually
by labyrinths
Summary: Lisa will discover what it all means, eventually. Joshua/Lisa


**Eventually**

**By Hedge Labyrinth**

**Disclaimer: V does not belong to me. Just playing in the sandbox. **

She is a child when she sustains a major fall. Lisa does not weep, blinking and worrying about what her mother will say.

Anna watches her daughter carefully. Anna's dynasty is new; her hopes hang on a thin thread. Despite her successes in other areas, Anna has only been able to birth a single, living daughter – not nearly enough.

Anna's desire for succession lies heavily over Lisa's head. Anna would not appreciate discovering her daughter has been playing in the ship's air ducts, dislocating an arm in the process.

Without daring to cry, Lisa holds her arm while the children she had been playing with scamper away. She has few friends. This incident will mean she'll have fewer – who would take the blame for her injuries?

Lisa sits alone in the ducts. Eventually, somebody comes. One of the other children must have told, after all. But instead of the looming presence of her mother, Lisa sees Joshua.

He's several years older than her, a teenager she does not know well. Quiet, respectful, smart. Unlike some other families, his father escaped the executioner's hand. He's old blood, connected to high nobility.

Sometimes, when he stands with his hands behind his back and bows his head as Lisa walks by, she thinks he's more royal than she'll ever be. She never tells this to her mother.

"What happened?" Joshua asks.

"I fell," Lisa mutters.

"Does it hurt here?"

"Yes."

He mends her shoulder with quick, deft movements. She doesn't flinch during the process.

"You're very brave," he tells her when it is done.

#

Lisa knows who she is going to be. Lisa knows what she is going to be. In a few years, she will become queen. She will choose a high-councillor and command a vast armada. Her future has been written into her flesh.

She watches her mother and tries to learn. Tries to imitate her.

Sometimes she secretly dreams what it would be like to rule in her own right, with Anna out of sight. Without having to hear her mother's demanding voice or obey Marcus' orders. She's a princess, but she feels like a pawn under the thumbs of the queen and the high-councillor.

She wonders what Joshua feels like, also reduced to following Anna's orders. He, who might have been king. But there's been a shift in power. There is a new dynasty to rule them all.

Lisa wonders if some day Anna too will fall, and a new power will rise. Perhaps one of the followers of John May, perhaps another. Lisa wonders if on that day she might have to bow herself and her pride before a new queen, like Joshua's father once did.

#

Joshua and Lisa share a secret. It terrifies her. She walks through the ship thinking her mother knows. Every time Joshua looks at her, she feels the impulse to dart away. If she remains firmly in place it is only due to the rigid control that has been instilled in her.

When they stand shoulder by shoulder, as Anna's bliss envelops the others, he glances at her and smirks. Lisa smiles back in return.

They share a terrible secret, so why is there joy coursing through her veins?

#

"You are very brave, Joshua," she says, touching him very lightly, forcing him to look at her

"Thank you," he says.

There is a pause. Only a breath of a pause, but in those few seconds she thinks her heart races a few notches faster, as it did when she was in orbit around Earth and she thought she would die, and she kissed Tyler, and she closed her eyes.

"My queen," Joshua concludes.

#

When she sees him again, alive and well, at the Fifth Column's hiding quarters, she surprises herself by immediately embracing him. It's probably the closest they've ever been to each other in all their lives.

He seems equally surprised by her reaction, his cool composure slipping for a moment to reveal a trembling smile and shocked eyes.

"I thought you were dead," she says.

"I thought you were Anna's prisoner," he replies.

"Not anymore," she says shaking her head. She looks around, lowering her voice. "They say I must lead our people against my mother. That I must stand as the new queen and oppose her. I'm not sure I am ready for such a thing."

"I think you are."

"She's adopted that child, the half-human baby, Ileana. She's named her successor," Lisa mutters. "This, it shall be treason."

"You are here. It's already done."

"I guess so."

"Be brave," he whispers, brushing her hand with his.

She can't puzzle what is happening, the odd jumble of sensations scrambled in the pit of her stomach and their behaviour ... touching, when they should not. She knows she'll figure it out, eventually. Just as eventually she will choose a high-councillor and build her own army to march against Anna. Her future has been written into her flesh.

But there's some time until eventually arrives.

She squeezes his hand back.

THE END


End file.
